The story of Detroit’s alter-universe overseas operations is full of surprises. We’ve been unraveling the Australian story here for years, and it’s far from complete. And we’ve covered Ford’s long-lived Argentine Ford Falcon and its unique variations of the Falcon six engine. But when LDeren posted this Argentine Fairlane, I became intrigued, especially so when I discovered it was powered by the venerable 292 Ford Y-Block V8. Whoa! And not in the form we know it: it was the beneficiary of a completely new cylinder head (beginning in 1971), which cured it of its asthma. And it was further turned into a rip-snorting 7,000 rpm racing engine. The engine so commonly referred to as a ‘boat anchor’ hereabouts became a terror of the tracks and a legend. Only in Argentina.

The Y-Block was Ford’s first OHV V8, which appeared in 1954. It was named after its deeply skirted (and heavy) block, which extended well past the crankshaft center-line. Except for a problem with getting oil to the rocker arms, due to the non-detergent oil of the times, it was a rugged lump, and proved itself to be a great truck engine.

Its performance potential was highly compromised by an unusual cylinder head design, that paired intake valves, and the intake ports snaked around so as to be paired, on top of each other. Quite odd. That, combined with relatively small valves, resulted in a cylinder head that did not breathe well, almost the perfect counterpoint to the 1955 Chevy small block, which did. Despite Ford’s near-domination of the hot rod scene with its flathead V8 for decades, the high-performance crowd almost instantly shunned the Y-Block and embraced the Chevy small block. A painful lesson.

The Y-Block’s odd head also had the exhaust ports turned upwards, which meant exhaust manifolds that sat alongside the valve covers, and typically, a rather obnoxious cross-over right in the front of the engine. Odd too.

In its final year as Ford’s top V8 engine, the 312 Y Block did get heads that were an improvement, and there are tricks to make a US Y-Block sing, including aftermarket aluminum heads (who would have thunk?). And it’s finding some love again, in that folks are appreciating originality more than ever again. A Y-Block will generate a lot more interest at the car show than another sbc.

Speaking of singing, the Y-Block has a very distinctive exhaust sound thanks to its unique V8 firing order (the diagram is wrong, in that the distributor is actually in the back). I have to assume that the paired intake valves (EIIEEIIE instead of the usual EIEIEIEI) was the reason, and the result is quite melodious.

The Y-Block first arrived in Argentina to power the 1961 F100 trucks, which are similar but not quite identical to the American versions, since they don’t have the ‘unibody’ cab/bed. We looked at the odd three-door F150 utility here.

In 1968, the market in Argentina was deemed to be ready for something bigger and more luxurious than the Falcon, which had been Ford’s mainstay there since 1962. The 1968 Fairlane/Torino was the obvious next step up, but the Torino name couldn’t be used, because IKA (Kaiser Argentina) was already using it for their nee-Rambler Classic car. So it had to stay a Fairlane, available in DeLuxe, 500, and LTD trim. In addition to the 292 V8, the 221 Falcon six was also available.

The Y-Block was of course originally intended to be installed only in Ford’s full-size cars and trucks, which meant that shoehorning it into the Falcon-platform 1968 Fairlane engine compartment, with its tall spring/shock towers, was obviously a challenge, especially those upswept exhaust manifolds. The only image I could find was this close-up, which shows the problem very clearly. And that brake master cylinder sitting right above it wasn’t ideal either, although it does seem to be oddly far forward. Maybe it’s not even hooked up. Power was modest: 145 hp with a two-barrel carb.

In 1971, Ford Argentina gave the Y-Block a new lease on life, in the form of all-new cylinder heads. Now they looked decidedly more conventional, the valves were significantly larger, and the valve arrangement was in the usual manner. These are called Fase II (Phase II) heads. I can’t find a whole lot of detailed information, but I suspect that their design was influenced by the Windsor V8 heads, although they’re hardly identical. Given that the bore spacing (4.38″) was the same on both of these engine families, it wouldn’t have been that hard to adapt or evolve the Windsor design, or aspects of it. It appears the Fase II heads still kept the old-school rocker arm shafts instead of the Windsor’s rocker design.

Along with the new heads, the Fase II also adopted a more traditional 1-5-4-8-6-3-7-2 firing order. No more distinctive Y-Block exhaust sound.

Thanks to the better-breathing heads, even with a modest two barrel carb, power was up to 180 hp. As is readily apparent, the exhaust manifolds are now downswept, and the engine looks more like a typical later FE V8 at first glance, except for the rear distributor.

The changes even made it possible to drop one into a Falcon. And performance mods upped power. Argentina had created a genuine performance engine.

The translations of the Spanish by Google are a bit fuzzy, but it appears there was a 1967 racing program with the Falcon (using a narrowed body) that supposedly used 289 heads from the US, adapted to the 292. Rules required a production head, which may be the specific impetus for developing the Fase II heads.

But that’s not all that was done in terms of new heads. A local firm Tandil manufactured some very serious racing heads for the Y-Block, with huge round ports. This is a Fairlane with a race-tuned 292 with these heads, including four Weber twin-choke carbs.

These heads are obviously based on the English Gurney-Weslake heads made for the Windsor, or adapted from them. I spent way too much time trying to unravel how these heads ended up being made in Argentina, cast in both aluminum and iron, and yet nobody seems to know the full story. But here they are, and there’s several sets of these still kicking around, like this fully restored engine here. This is the ultimate Y-Block; or is it?

How about DOHC heads? Yes, these were designed and built in Argentina by a small shop, Bucci. The block was sleeved and de-stroked to run in a 3 liter racing class.

The racing Fairlane eventually got an aerodynamic nose, and as late as 1986-1988, it was the dominant car of the Touring Car series, beating the formidable GTX Dodge with its powerful 318 LA engine.

So we’ve come to the tail end of this story. The Fairlane was built in Argentina in this form until 1982. By then, the market had shifted away from big American cars to smaller, more efficient European cars. The venerable Y-Block soldiered on in trucks for a few more years, but sometime in the late 1980s it was finally laid to rest, along with its new Fase II cylinder heads.

In 1961, when Ford sent the Y-Block tooling to Argentina, the Windsor wasn’t around yet. The tooling to build an engine is very expensive. The volumes in Argentina were very small compared to the US. Once they were geared up to build the y-Block, switching over to build the Windsor wouldn’t have been cost effective.

Anyway, with the new heads, the Y-Block was a perfectly adequate alternative. The only real negative would have been the extra weight of the block, but that’s not exactly the end of the world.

It’s the same thing with cars like the Argentine Falcon, which was built for over 20 years. Once the tooling is is in place, it’s cheaper to just keep them in use than change it out. Ask VW about that, back in the air-cooled era.

It’s too bad they sent that tooling down in ’61 rather than ’62. They must have had the Windsor on the drawing board at that time.

I’d hate, hate, hate to change the plugs on a Y-Block stuffed into a Fairlane with those stupid shock towers. The center plugs are annoying even with a 289 in there.

With that being said, on a side note, I always found it intriguing that GM copied the Falcon (when producing the Chevy II) completely enough that they included that terrible front suspension design. I sometimes wish my grandpa would have bought my mom a Camaro instead of a Mustang just for the improved (if not perfect) front end design. 🙂

The likely reason that the Y block was sent south was due to starting production of the small block. There is no way they could have justified creating a second set of tooling for the small block with the low volumes expected in Argentina. So instead of scrapping the Y block tooling Argentina got it for “free”. It was shipped down there to be used in trucks the fact that they eventually put it in cars was due to the fact that it was what they had.

Aaron65

Posted November 30, 2014 at 11:47 AM

Ford used the 292 part way through the ’63 model year in Galaxies. They must have just used up leftover engines and shipped the tooling on its way.

I just looked it up…it looks like Ford used the 292 in trucks through the ’64 model year, and started using the 352 in ’65. How would they continue casting those engines if they sent the tooling away?

Aaron, after the FE come on line in 1958, the Y-Block was relegated to trucks and low-end models, and undoubtedly, there was more tooling than needed to keep a certain number of them in production, and still send some of the tools to Argentina. It’s not like there’s just one tool per engine line….:)

Aaron65

Posted November 30, 2014 at 3:19 PM

Good point Paul…I guess I didn’t even think that there was more than one engine line for the Y-Block…

Not to keep picking brains, but at which engine plants were Y-Blocks built?

Both Cleveland and Dearborn. But Dearborn only through 1957, Cleveland through 1964. Which explains it: the Dearborn line was undoubtedly the one shipped to Argentina.

Gaspar

Posted April 11, 2016 at 5:21 PM

We also have to consider that the Y-block was produced initially for the commercial line (F-100, 350 and 600). The Falcon was too small for the Y-block. The Fairlane had more room so it was adapted. It was the first passenger car to be produced in Argentina that had a V8, but since 1969. So initially the production of y-blocks was considered only for trucks.

Interesting. The only exposure I’ve had to the Y block was medium duty trucks with the 292. As noted, it was a decent truck engine. I do wonder why all this effort was expended on the 292 instead of the 312 though. If power was the goal you’d think 20 extra cubes would be a big plus.
Here in North America we tend to think that once a design goes away from our market it’s history. I’m always fascinated to find out that sometimes they live on, very successfully, in other parts of the world.

You guessed right. The original use for the Y-block in Argentina was to power the F-100. So the tooling dated from 1962.
When the Fairlane was launched Ford was the only company that offered a V8 engine in Argentina since 1964 when Los Cedros S.A. that manufactured the Studebaker 7E7 and 7E9 (both with a V8 engine) went out of bussiness. And they were proud of it; until 1971 when Chrysler brought the 318, V8 was equal to Ford.

You should also consider that aproximately half of the manufactured Fairlanes were equipped with the 292. In total there were 29.000 made, so half is 14.500. That’s not a really big production figure, if you think that it was produced during 12 years.
And the V8 pick up and trucks were not really popular. Most of the F-100 and 350s were ordered with the 221 6cyl, some others with the Perkins diesel, and in last place came the 292 V8. So I guess, bringing the 302 didn’t make sense to Ford Motor Argentina.

The V8 pick ups were used as ambulances (because of the power and speed), and specially in the Patagonia were roads were virtually non-existant, and the fuel was cheaper due to subsidies.

I love this car! I’m currently restoring one from 1977 with the 6 cylinder engine in LTD trim.

The Fairlane was one of the most expensive cars you could buy in Argentina during the seventies. The LTD version came with standard AC, power steering, power brakes, and vinyl roof. The car in the photos is a LTD Elite, a “special edition” launched in 1978 that came only in silver with pearl or black vinyl roof, while the upholstery was made from brown leather.

From 1976 few private costumers bought them because of the rising gas prices and the fact that it was very large for our streets and parking lots. So many of them were ordered and owned by the government. In fact, it was the presidential car from 1975 to 1990, replacing a fleet of Rambler Ambassadors.
Unfortunately, the depreciated really bad in te 80s due to their high fuel consumption, and were used as a cheap replacement for a pick-up truck by construction workers, plumbers, etc.

During the 90s and 2000s many received a CNG equipment to lower the operation expenses, since natural gas here costs one third the price of gasoline.

And still now you can see some of them being used as a shared taxi (“compartido”) in the poorest neighbourhoods of our biggest cities.

Ford Motor Argentina examined the posibility to manufacture also the station wagon and the Ranchero version, but concluded that it would be better to continue with the Falcon-based station wagon and to begin with the Falcon-based Ranchero that finally came up in 1973.

The car featured here is pretty close to originality except for the mirror, that came in the driver’s door and the wheels, that came with Elite hubcaps.

The Argentine Fairlane used the ’68 U.S. grille but ’69 U.S. taillights. The ’68 Grille was stamped aluminum and likely less expensive than the more complex ’69 version. The ’69 taillights were smaller than the ’68 units.

One Y block engine that I never hear about is the 272. It was the V8 that ford put in their more pedestrian models in 55 and 56 (at least). Seems to have gone away as I guess there just wasn’t much anywhere it could do a better job than a 292 or 312. It was tough though. Just about the last part of my 55 Ford that remained working when it was all done.

The second car that I had in high school in the mid sixties was a ’55 Fairlane sedan that had the 272 and automatic trans. I always thought it was a pretty good engine. It did oil better after I cleaned the sludge out of the passages in the heads. It had a 2 barrel carb and dual exhausts which I found kind of odd. The former owner was an older lady in our small town who had owned it for years so I doubt that was not the factory setup. It seemed to have pretty good performance, but then the car I had before it was a six banger Powerglide Chevy. That may have made it feel faster. I agree that this engine had a real sweet exhaust note. The glasspack mufflers I added helped, too.

Mine was a 55 tudor sdn, three on the tree and single exhaust. I thought it was fast too but had gone through a blue flame six and two flathead fords before it. It’s all what you’re used to. You are the first person I’ve run across in years to share that 272 experience. I thought it was a good engine and it lasted well. The rest of the car was something else. Should not have been driven by a teen.

Next up was a Fairlane 500 with a 312 and auto. That was probably faster than the 283/glide 57 chevy that I still have. Anything that moves is faster than it now as it is apart. Memories….

Trying to wrap my head around the Rich and Famous driving a Fairline really made my day These cars were throwaways when I was a kid in Quebec as Fords of the era rusted even faster than anything else, and that was really saying something in the Land ‘O Rustbuckets.

I don’t have a lot of experience with the Y block, since I am a bit too young for the era, but according to my Dad, they weren’t too bad if you kept up on oil changes. We tend to forget that the oils of this era were awful compared to what we have now. Manufacturers often recommend two month/2000 mile oil change intervals, to prevent all the sludge and ash that would inevitably accumulate. Not surprisingly, many missed these tight intervals, so the passages to the head sludged up, leading to clattery valves and eventual failure. There wasn’t much point in doing engines in cars of the era, since they would be too rusty by this point to make it worthwhile.

I once drove a 3 ton Mercury stake truck for haying and it had the 292. It breathed through a tiny carburetor and it felt that, while it would never win races, it would always get there.

I vividly remember my Dad taking his cars to the garage and getting the “tune-up” that replaced the points, plugs and condenser, for $49.95 plus parts. The bill was always about $70, which is $400+ in today’s terms. This happened twice a year, so no wonder so many guys wrenched at home.

Now, if you take an engine apart that has had even one oil change a year, it’s a clean as granny’s kitchen.

The 312 Y-Block was also a fairly popular marine engine too. Worked on a few of them around here in Portland, along with 427 FE marine engines. But this whole story is as bizarre as the Brazilian Maverick story. Just so many small volume niche markets that were largely unknown to us in the States, until the Interwebz arrived. And in case you are wondering, in Brazil, for a brief time you could get a 2 door, small bumper Ford Maverick with a 4bbl 302 and a 4 speed stick. It is one of the most collectable cars there today. I still want one, although certainly easy enough to build your own.

I spent my teen years on an island, so hence lots of boats. I have seen practically everything in boats, but common-garden-variety Chevrolet motors are by far more common, although the Ford FE was fairly common. Perhaps the most interesting one I saw was that of a fisherman friend, who still one of the cute little double ended boats seized (totally illegally, by the way) from the Canadian Japanese in 1941. He had a 194 CID Chevy six in his, out of a Chevy II, totally rebuilt of course, and governed down to max 3000 rpm. It was hooked up to the stock transmission, too, although only hi and reverse were necessary. He ran that thing at max throttle for hours and it never missed a beat. They made great boat motors since they were easy to install, too, and it was not necessary to cool the exhaust manifold since the engine was great big heat-sink anyway.

High fuel prices, and the flammability of gasoline, have made gas motors for commercial boats practically extinct, and good thing, too.

Yup, I spent 28 years as a marine mechanic, and you are certainly correct about the small block Chev being by far the most popular. And the 4.3 V6 is also for small trailer boats. Chevrolet engines have put a LOT of food on my table 🙂 And so has OMC sterndrives…

You really have to give credit when credit is due, a Chev marine engine usually craps out due either to old age or lack of maintenance, or most likely, both. Since they are dime ‘o dozen, it’s hardly fair to denigrate them. I mean, if you built one up yourself you could make it practically indestructible, especially of you make it impossible to sustain more than 3000 rpm or so. The modern Mercury Marine stuff is pretty good, although I’d always go diesel.

suzulight

Posted November 30, 2014 at 4:17 PM

Usually lack of maintenance. Especially winterizing. Replaced many, many perfectly good ones due to freeze damage. And the small Chevy (and 4.3 also) like to crack in the valley under the intake manifold, so you often don’t know it until water starts shooting out of the breather vents on the valve covers. Such a waste, when it takes only 5-10 mins to drain.

Suzulight,
Here in Brasil we never had bumper laws on older cars, so our mavericks, darts and galaxies never had the full, heavy thick bumpers you got in U.S..
We got Y here too, from the fifties till 1976 in trucks and from 66 to 76 in galaxies.
The engines were identical to U.S. models, nothing related to the argentinian stuff shown on this great article.
Mavericks here are the more valued car on the muscle car arena. People just love them and they can get some ridiculously hgh prices. The version You refered to, known here as Maverick Quadrijet were just a regular maverick, which could be even ordered with drum brakes up front and a hotted up 302.
It came from factory with a holley #4776 600 cfm double pumper, an edelbrock F4B intake, an Isky RPM300 com and solid lifters. Higher compresson and in terms of gross hp advertising, while the regular 302 got 199hp, the quadrijet got 257. It was the fastest and quickest car around here for a long long time and was created basically for kickin GM in road race since they used the opala, an opel redesigned here, with the 250 engine. As a side note, we never had the small block chevy here and dodges even with the 318 never had any performance modifications from the factory.

Great article. I had heard about these engines years ago, and the story was the heads were somewhat Windsor based. Appears to be true. Supposedly, cylinder bore spacing and head bolt location is very close between a Ford Y and a Windsor. Incidentally, Chevy kept the old ‘Blue Flame’ 235 and 261 truck engines in production until the late 70’s.

Some 1950s cars had AT but since they were imported, it was possible that you couldn’t find any parts if it broke down. And since none AT were manufactured in Argentina, that fear remained.

The AT fluid is also imported, so again, the supply issue.

Very few garages knew (even now) how to repair or mantain them. Magazines from the time recomended to keep a stack of AT fluid if you travelled because it was unlikely that you could find some outside of the big cities.

Inspite all of the trouble Ford introduced an AT as optional for the Taunus in 1974 up to 1980, and for the Falcon from 1982 to 1986.

Fascinating, I had never heard this before. One look at those exhaust manifolds on the U.S. version helps explain the head oiling issues. True that oils then were not so great, but they were probably even less satisfactory given the placement of the manifolds so as to guarantee maximum heat in those iron heads.

Actually, that’s not the problem. It was the internal oil passageway through the block to the head that got clogged because of the non-detergent oils back then. With modern oil, there’s no problem. Back then, Ford added an external line to feed the head, but that can be discarded nowadays in a rebuild.

It’s neat to see these cars had a second life in South America, as they weren’t a bad car at all. A nice size, with decent passenger and trunk room considering it was a mid-size car. Several friends and acquaintances had these back in the day, and other than the rust issue, they seemed pretty well regarded. I sure liked mine, but by the time I owned it, it was on it’s last legs.

As a side note: Ford of Brazil began the production of the 272 Y-block for his truck line back in 1958, for which they set up a whole foundry and machining plant. I wonder where these tools came from (Dearborn? Cleveland?) . In 1967 the same engine was applied to new Ford Galaxie 500 (’66 model), with three-speed manual, power steering and brakes. By ’69 it was upgraded to the 292 and got a Cruise-o-matic plus A/C. The car went through several improvements (disc brakes, electronic ignition, facelits and such) until 1978 when the 302 arrived from Mexico. The Y-block factory was shut down. The last big Ford (called the Landau) came out in 1983 and the whole production amounted to 78,000: they were practically hand-made, with top-notch quality and very expensive prices. AGB

Interesting. Since Dearborn Y-Block production ended after 1957, undoubtedly it was the source for the tooling, probably both for Brazil and Argentina a few years later. Given the very low production levels in both those countries, there was enough tooling for both of them.

This may come as weird to many Americans and Canadians but in many parts of the world – and for quite a long time – US and Canadian-made cars enjoyed the same status as held today by, say, Audis, Mercedes Benzes and Lexuses (Lexi?). Not only the really expensive cars like Cadillacs and Impreials but also cars which in the US or Canada were thought of as low market, like Chevrolets and Plodges. In Israel we had the locally-assembled Studebaker Lark as a slightly cheaper option for the imported US/Canadian cars and I suppose it was the Israeli equivalent to the Argentinian Fairlane, there was even a one-off presidential 4 door drop top (yes).

Problem with the oils of the 50’s -80’s were that a lot of them were parafin based, which although cutting down on wear and tear, they left a gummy film which built up over time and reduced the volume of oil flowing through passageways in an engine block. Texaco oils were particularly troublesome… Back in 1970 I was working in a shop when one of Texaco’s trucks, a 1964 C60- Chevrolet truck with a 5,000 gallon fuel delivery tank came in, with a smoking problem.. we tore the engine down and it was so full of this parafin muck that we had to discard it, and get another engine. We could not even get it to vat out. This truck had regular 3,000 mile oil changes using Havoline oil, and only had around 50,000 miles at the time… Made me swear off any parafin based oil.

Looking at the tight fit of the Y-block in there made me think about an alternative method to keep things compact. Put the exhausts in the valley (you could keep them stacked as they already were). Put the inlets on the outside of the engine, in a higher down-draught position (higher than the exhaust had been in the standard head- even intruding into the rocker cover some if you like). Do it right and you miss the suspension towers with plenty of room while keeping heat right away from them as well. Take the exhaust manifolding forward from the valley and down front (like in a TVR). Job done!

Some years ago assembled a chevrolet chevette with a 4.3L V6 90° chevy engine, 262 CID. To make room for the steering column and for the clutch fork had to move the engine some 2 inches to the right. Them no room for exhaust on the right side. Made it going up and forward, them passed it below the damper and up agian when was all to the left side, going paralel with the left exhaust. No heat on the pass side, no swaet with hot starter, no frame dealing, nothing.